6 comments:

Ryan Field
said...

Back in the late 80's, when I first began querying agents and editors with work, there was no internet and all you could rely upon were books like Writers Market or mags like Writers Digest. Very often the addresses would change, even with an up-to-date copy, and several times I called the agency simply to confirm an address. But nowadays there's simply no excuse when all the information is at the end of your fingertips. At the very least you can google; but if you don't subscribe to something like writersmarket.com (or one of the others) you are handicapped. Back when, you didn't even know how to pigeonhole an agency correctly to see if your work would be compatible with what they represented, but now all you have to do is read their list and you know at once. Maybe it's all too easy?

It's possible she may have thought that, like many agents who accept email queries, you might only reply if interested (we know that's not true, but she might not). With a snail query, responses, while slower, are almost always given, even for a rejection.

Waiting on replies to equeries that are never going to come is a pain in the U-No-What.

I want my paper rejections, darn it! How can I wallpaper my room - a la F. Scott Fitzgerald - unless I snail query and get that nice "no thanks" back in the mail? (Printing out emails just isn't the same!)